San had been a shock, but having Ling drive her home later that day and telling her everything she had spoken to Kai about was somehow worse. She didn’t know if she had the strength to rehash the past with him. She hadn’t felt relief or vindication but experienced a huge wave of unrelenting anger tangled up with a sense of betrayal. One that had plagued her all night. She was no further forward in processing any of her emotions.
“You’re early.” Kai’s voice cut into her thoughts and made her jump in startled surprise. Butterflies were hitting her chest hard, yet she wasn’t sure why. Standing almost like greeting a royal and getting awkward with her overreaction, her face flushed, and she awkwardly nodded to him instead.
“We haven’t been here long.” She lied, avoiding his eye, and motioned to Yuelin, who was engrossed in playing with another child at the ball pit.
Kai was standing close by the table, and she hadn’t even been aware he approached, watching her intently before he ran his palms over his jean legs like he had clammy hands. His nervousness was subtle, but she still picked up on it.
She looked different to him now. Even though she was physically the same as last week, even in a similar dress, he was no longer looking at her with a flawed vision. And all the things he had found attractive, cute, or sweet five years before were still evident in her as he appraised her now. It felt like someone had lifted the shutters in his dark world, and he could finally see his surroundings clearly. His vision was once again twenty-twenty.
It only made him feel worse. A sleepless night, tossing, turning, and going over it in his brain hadn’t helped him think any clearer this morning. And now, faced with her, he didn’t know what to say.
“Are we really going to drag this out and not say it?” Meilei couldn’t stand it any longer, nearly choking with the static around him and too uptight to sit back down and play nice.
Kai hesitated, swallowed hard, and nodded. Knowing she was right, he should put it out there because they both knew it would be better to rip the band-aid off. Both were still standing facing one another over the table.
Maybe once a long time ago, Kai had a chance to seek her out and make amends, but that day was long gone. She had lived through too much, and his reappearance and how he had treated her at first sealed his fate.
Kai appeared submissive in his manner towards her, his voice softer, and he was having difficulty looking her in the eye.
“What do I tell Yuelin when she grows? That her father threw away his legal rights to be her dad?” Meilei knew this wasn’t what he was doing, but she had to hold onto something to explain the anger and pain she had been experiencing in her soul since Ling told him that Kai finally believed. It bubbled up inside her as he rekindled old hurts by being this way towards her. Reminding her of how he had loved her once.
An overwhelming fury and heartbreak that he had come to his senses five years too late. Her defiance now, her internal surge of newfound strength and stubbornness, were fuelled by this agonizing heavy wound on her heart that he caused and thought he could wipe away so easily.
It was his white flag because he had nothing else that Meilei would want.
Meilei gawped at him in disbelief and slid into her seat with an involuntary plop, her legs giving out as she blinked at him uncertainly. She hadn’t thought much about what Kai would do concerning his parents’ involvement and had only focused on what this had meant for her and Yuelin.
Of course, Kai had bigger matters to deal with.
His parents betrayed him.
“You can’t do that.” She hadn’t expected Kai to take it this far, but maybe he was still processing what had been done and would change his mind. She knew how much Yanhue meant to him. Even then, she knew his entire education and upbringing centered around one day being a part of his family business, and she had seen him in action at OTS. He was good at what he did. She didn’t want to be burdened with that loss for him.
He hadn’t allowed himself to do this these past months because he feared she might stir other emotions. Now, he was freed from that because he knew the truth and couldn’t stop his gaze. Taking in her heart-shaped face, large doe-like eyes, and delicate features. The agony was tearing at him that he had failed to see the innocence, sadness, and vulnerability in her all this time when it was right there for all to see. The face he once adored had never changed, yet she had more of a haunted aura.
Kai hung his head and stared at their hands on the table, so close yet not touching, and forced down the lump choking him.
“I lost a life with you and our daughter by my mother’s hand.”
Meilei was silenced by his passionate and intense response, seeing that he truly meant it, and her eyes filled with moisture. Fear infiltrated her that maybe within that plan, Kai hoped to rekindle something between them, yet she just could not. How he looked at her since he walked in here was so reminiscent of how he had adoringly gazed at her in the past, and she didn’t want it. It brought up intense anxiety and a need to push him away.
Kai had expected this from her and knew it was only how it should be. He hurt her. Her despair and years of suffering meant he couldn’t ever take her back to what he had once been to her, even if he wasn’t sure that’s how he felt. This overwhelming sense of loss and craving for what he once had with her, he didn’t fully understand if it was real or borne of guilt yet. He nodded and impulsively reached for her hand on the table without thinking. Clasping it for a second.
Meilei gasped at the sudden gentle contact and yanked her hand away from him. Her heart skipped a beat, and she shifted in her seat to put further distance between them although Kai didn’t react, it still cut his heart with a tiny blow. He knew he had no right to feel hurt, but he could not control his own emotions.